


The Crossroads

by TheThievingMagpie



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Afterlife, Episode 26 spoilers, Limbo, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 18:48:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15443496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheThievingMagpie/pseuds/TheThievingMagpie
Summary: Caleb momentarily falls in battle and meets an old friend in limbo.





	The Crossroads

It was red for a few seconds

 

and then a few seconds more.

 

Then it was black and cold,

until a stubborn part of him said

 

 _not yet_.

 

It felt a long way. A very long way. For a moment he did not know his past or his country or his name. He was dizzy to his very core, tumbling through the dark until he finally landed somewhere. Sloshed as a hangover, his mind swirled yet his body was paralyzed.

He was asleep, laying down, a heavy weight sinking into a bed, but he didn’t feel Nott beside him. He was afraid to open his eyes.

It was okay. He would manage whatever was to come.

“ _Oh Caleb_ , what did you do?” a sad voice asked.

This voice - this voice he had not forgotten, yet he had gone without its presence long enough to feel the slacked thread of its memory pull taut.

“I don’t know,” Caleb replied, eyes still shut.

“I won’t say I’m not glad to see you, but I was expecting a longer wait.”

“Mollymauk,” Caleb said, for that’s who it was.

“Yes, dear.” A warm hand brushed the hair from Caleb’s forehead.

Though he struggled to opened his eyes, Caleb could finally see the rough realness of him. Mollymauk leaned over him in scattered candlelight, red eyes observing his face, clever smile turned gentle. Caleb drank in the the intricate details of him that had somehow slipped away - the shadow of every little scar on his neck and chest, sun-faded shoulders and frayed edges of the embroidery on his coat, the light clinking of jewelry in his horns, and the soft eyelashes on his lowered eyes. The beautiful and ostentatious tiefling of The Traveling Carnival of Curiosities. Caleb began to sit up as his friend sat on the bed beside him. There was something strange about the fact that Mollymauk was there, but Caleb couldn’t recall why.

“Why do I feel like I weigh two tonnes?”

“I imagine you’re tired; you’ve come a long way.”

“A long way,” Caleb repeated. This was a strange dream, and he wasn’t sure why Mollymauk was in it, but it seemed important. “I think perhaps you are the one who has come a long way, my friend.”

“Equally possible,” Mollymauk said with a quirk of a shoulder and a throwaway smile. “Ah, you have my pendant,” he said, and curled lavender fingers around the gold heart Caleb wore. His smile grew, the fangs more visible, and Caleb was strangely charmed at rediscovering all of these Molly-isms that had been so commonplace at one time. How had he forgotten? “Wish it could have been of more use, considering the circumstances. How are the others? How’s Yasha? I haven’t been able to see too much of them.”

The connecting points of this dream-speech were vague, but Caleb went with it. “Yasha’s is fine. We are all managing somehow.” At least the base emotions of Caleb told him this was true - he could not recall where he was or why or what was happening in the conscious world - and in a dream it did not matter. But for the strange moment, his eyes picked up the slack as details were becoming incredibly sharp, rather than hazy. Behind Mollymauk it seemed they were in a tavern room, and Caleb moved to stand up from a familiar bed. “Is this Zadash?”

“Is that where we are? Huh, I suppose that’s true.”

Zadash. . . and that had been a while since he had been with Mollymauk there. That must have been why his mind took him here. Caleb was starting to make sense of it, and why seeing Molly was reminiscent rather than normal. “Oh, I see . . I haven’t seen you in a long time.”

“No, you haven’t. Very unlucky for you.” Molly gave his characteristic giggle and Caleb smiled at the nostalgia of it.

“But why are we here?”

“You’re starting to remember some things and you’re going to be a little confused, but in the meantime, why don’t we go for a stroll? We haven’t talked in ages.”

They left the room and opened tavern doors to walk the block, and Caleb was met with colorful bunting and raucous laughter. “There’s a festival?”

“Yes, a never-ending party,” Mollymauk said with zest. It was very much like the festival the Mighty Nein had walked through before, and it sparked wonderful memories - simpler times. But now - now it was warm and joyous and safe. Mollymauk took his arm and led him into the darkening evening of tree-lined autumn streets. There were people of all sorts, far more diverse than the Zadash he remembered, drinking in the streets and playing music as people danced without mind. When some groups saw each other, they cheered in recognition of friends, and when Caleb looked closer, he started to notice a theme. Caleb had seen spirit-festivals before, when the living paraded the Danse Macabre and celebrated life by recognizing death, wearing skulls and red ribbons for blood. These folk went the same way, though the gore looked real for one moment and then was gone. The streets were slightly wet, as though the gutters ran with blood, but as he looked, they became only dewey and flagons lay forgotten with spilled ale. There was an element of cheer accompanied by relief; the sighs and laughter of people who no longer had worries. This was the oddest dream Caleb had ever had; dark but whimsical.

Mollymauk let him enjoy the sights and began to speak with him. His idle conversations were of memory and opinion - telling Caleb of times in the circus he hadn’t mentioned before, of delightful scams and wonderful yet distrustful people, and how the people here were kind and full of stories. Caleb listened, absorbing the scene and too disoriented to say much otherwise, and Molly eventually lead him to another pub where they sat facing each other by the window and witnessed the odd people moving about without a care in the world. It seemed Mollymauk had been busy entertaining himself, but mostly, Caleb noticed, it was never about singular hedonism but a need for social connection. He had grown to know this about Molly. Of all the places he’d been and seen and taken up as a place of revelry, even as he mentioned the charming and lying people he knew, he was quietly describing himself, and Caleb realized this was what he had always done: rounded up the broken people, the misfits, the people who were in need of some good in order to show them a time worth having in life. As he had done with the circus, and as he had done with the Mighty Nine.

He had left them better than he had found them - he had left.

“Oh,” Caleb said, suddenly realizing. “You died.”

A small, sad smile. “Yeah,” he shrugged.

“Ah. . .Oh.” As soon as the memory hit, a pain started to seep through Caleb’s chest, and in unison, the gaping wound of Mollymauk’s fatality opened and revealed itself, spilling red forward over his shirt and trousers. Caleb held onto Molly’s shoulder as he leaned forward in the pain of grief, the anguish of seeing his wounded friend again. He gasped for air and Molly held him up in support. Remembering so suddenly felt as if he were ripped from Caleb’s heart all over again, and hot tears faded his vision. He tried to speak. “Mollymauk. . .”

“It’s alright Caleb; everyone dies,” Molly said, rubbing his shoulder. “As far as ways to go out, it was a decent one. I’m glad you were there.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“What for?”

Caleb had no answer, only that he felt terrible about it. He had gone through this already. Had buried him. Had buried his feelings as well, and it was unbearable to feel it so renewed. This was a night-terror after all, though he did not know why now. Maybe it was an opportunity to process some grief. Quick as a whip, he had been trained to rein back these emotions, and Caleb contained himself with a deep breath. Molly watched him and released his arms, his shirt and coat stained red with his blood, the skin smeared with the dirt they had poured over him, the wound still dark and pulsing from his heart.

“Did it hurt?”

Molly bit a smile. “Oh yes.”

“I. . . I wish I could have done more, Mollymauk, I-” _I don’t want to see it_ , Caleb thought, and as he did so, Mollymauk was again unwounded and clean as he remembered him before the death.

“Mr. Caleb,” Molly said quietly, placing his hand over Caleb’s. “I heard what you said at my funeral. I saw you dig the hole and carry me in. You took care of me.” Molly looked down, watching his own tattooed hand rub a thumb over shabby, bandaged knuckles. “It was all very sweet; I miss you all terribly. You’re my family.”

Caleb knew this, even as it was hard to say. Nott had pushed him, tried to make him confess what the Nein meant to him, but the words stuck in his throat. Even now, there would never be a better time, yet he swallowed so much of it down. “You were well-loved, Mollymauk.”

Molly’s eyes flicked up to his. “I know it; and I’m glad to know it.” He gave another fanged grin. “So sentimental, Caleb?”

“ _Ja_ , well. This is a rare opportunity to speak with you. It is not every day one gets to see a departed friend.”

“Your _dearly_ departed.”

“Well, don’t push it,” Caleb smiled, and Molly reflected it. “But, yes.”

“I wish I could have gotten to know you better.”

“You really don’t.”

“Well I have plenty of time now, why not?”

“I don’t want this to be about me.”

There was a slight pause as they looked at each other, but Molly’s eye shifted downward. “You know,” The tiefling took his hand from Caleb’s, resting his chin upon it and using his other to trace the lines in the table beside them. “Yasha is my best friend. Always will be. Though I must admit, I always had a soft spot for you. I wondered if we might be better friends.”

“You know, ah,” Caleb felt himself heat up at the direct attention. He had noticed how Molly treated him differently. “I had- I had wondered about that, but, ah,”

“I was absolutely interested in you, if that’s what you wondered, and I’m not embarrassed to say it. Well, the dead have very little to be embarrassed about - no stakes,” He laughed.

Caleb was more confused than bashful. “Why would _you_ bother with _me_? I am nothing-”

“For fuck’s sake- Enough of that. You’re going to insult my taste in front of me?”

Caleb paused. “I mean, it hasn’t stopped us before,” he said, with a gesture. Molly laughed loudly.

“No, it hadn’t. Fair enough.”

“But it’s not fair to tell me this now, when there’s nothing to do about it.”

“No?” Mollymauk’s tail swished back and forth with interest. “Or is it your chance to tell me what you’re thinking without worrying about anything at all? What would the repercussions be? I’m dead.”

That gave Caleb pause. “In so many ways you’re still alive to me. And. . .”

“And?”

Caleb shifted weight in his chair. “Alright. Fuck it. I always found you very handsome.”

Molly smiled, softer this time. “Were you curious about me?”

“Very.”

“Hmm.” He leaned forward, chin on hand. “What were you curious about?”

Caleb scratched the scruff at his face, still fighting the impulses that told him to relax. “Why. . .am I flirting with a dead man.”

“Why the hells not?”

“Its fruitless.”

“I don’t really care, do you?”

“I, uh. . .” Now that Caleb thought on it, did it really matter what he did in such a dream? Though just as absurd as it was, it was also feeling more and more realistic, as if it could turn to a night-terror again quickly. A haunting feeling burned the back of his mind - but here was Mollymauk, long-limbed and handsome, all dangerous scars and flamboyant tattoos, mischievous smile and curving tail, leaning into his space. He was just as he remembered him; almost more.

“Ask me what you always wanted to ask,” he said.

“Okay. . .” Caleb breathed. “Is your tail like Frumpkin’s? Moving with your mood?”

“I should have expected tail questions. And, sometimes? But its still an appendage and can still control it when I want to.”

“And if someone scritches you on, uh,” he mimed petting the base of a cat’s tail and Molly slapped the table in mirth as he burst out laughing. A tattooed hand went to his eyes and Caleb could almost swear he was blushing.

“The ass in the air thing. Yeah, that one’s true, you kinky bastard.”

“Ah, sorry-”

“No, I’m into it.” Molly waved it off, looking pleased for some reason.

“And the blood magic - is that what got you killed?”

“A glaive in the chest got me killed, but more or less. I was bleeding out from trying to do too much at once. But I’d do it again.”

“And the person you found attractive,” Caleb swallowed. As Mollymauk studied his face with a spreading grin, tail lazily moving from side to side, he already knew the answer. “Why didn’t you . . .tell me sooner?”

“What would you have done with my affections? You certainly wouldn’t have accepted them.”

“No,” He admitted. “Not right away, no. But I might have. Over time. You are. . .” _Incredible, beautiful, joyous_. “In many ways you are the opposite of me, but I wonder if I could have carried that joy further, ah,” Molly was looking at him in a way he didn’t recognize. Caleb could scarcely believe how much he was sharing, but even as it was painful to be honest, surely it was not as painful as the deaths of those around them. It was liberating. It was useless. “But what does it matter?”

“It matters.”

“It wouldn’t have worked.”

“Dunno. Might have been fun, though.” Molly said it so earnestly with a childish smile that Caleb couldn’t help but find it infectious.

“But you never tried to bed me.”

“No, didn’t want to disrupt the nice dynamic the group was forging. Would you have said yes?”

“I am honestly not sure.” Caleb admitted, and was surprised by his own smile. “Not the best head-space, most days. Other days I might have used a distraction, but I’m not comfortable with other people. At least not outside the Nein. But you. . .”

“But me?”

Caleb gave a shrug.

Mollymauk gave a light rap on the table. “Missed my chance!”

“Ah, no, you deserve better than just a distraction.”

Mollymauk leaned in conspiratorially. “I would have made it better than that, darling.”

Caleb felt his face flush, and he ducked his head a bit. “I didn’t want to get too attached to anyone, but. . .if I had known you would be leaving us like you did, I would have been so much nicer to you, Mollymauk.”

“You already were. Incredibly so. And you’re being awfully nice to me now.”

There was another brief pause as they smiled at each other, and Molly leaned slowly forward, resting his fingertips on Caleb’s neck as he kissed his cheek. Caleb lowered his eyes, and could smell him now this close - he didn’t smell of death. He smelled like the incense Caleb used for spells. Molly’s lips were warm on his cheekbone, and there was a soft clink of jewelry as Molly moved back, looked him in the eye, and slowly kissed his other cheek. Caleb could feel now that he was being offered a choice. Mollymauk was still close as he leaned back to gauge a reaction. His red eyes shifted to Caleb’s lips and quirked a smile, and Caleb felt no qualm in leaning in those few inches to kiss him. He could feel Mollymauk’s smile as he kissed back, only a little desperate as they both inhaled. Molly’s hand went up Caleb’s neck into his hair, and Caleb felt his face burn as the kiss deepened and he could taste the ale on Molly’s tongue. It was obvious now, how much Molly really meant to him, but Caleb broke away and rested his head on Molly’s shoulder. It felt strange in the center of him and turned bittersweet. Regretful, rather than fulfilling. Molly’s hand continued to tangle in Caleb’s hair, and Caleb sighed. “This feels so real.”

“It is real.”

“It can’t be,” Caleb said, pulling back. “Though I wish it was.”

Mollymauk’s hand went to his cheek. “Caleb,” he said, and again his voice was as sad as when he first heard it. “Where do you think you are?”

“We are in Zadash. We are in a dream.”

Molly sighed and let his hand fall from Caleb’s face. His deft fingers went to the inside of his coat, and he pulled out his tarot. They should not have been there, as they were now in Beauregard’s possession, but they were a part of him as much as the coat. Molly kept eye contact, knowing intrinsically what the card would say as he placed one forward, then another and another, dropping the Lovers, the Wheel, the Tower. “We almost had a chance, you know,” he said quietly, as he began to pull more cards, _fwip, fwip_ , each showing the progression of Caleb’s life after Molly died - The Empress, Temperance, Strength, the Magician - and a final card, the Hanged Man. “Do you understand, Caleb?”

Caleb looked to the cards overlapping on the table, wondering what he was supposed to understand. He studied their familiar and absurd art, their clearly printed titles. “I. I can read that.”

“I imagine so.”

Panic was beginning to bubble in his chest immediately. No one should be able to read in a dream. They can’t read a clock, and they _cannot read._ “Am I dead?”

“I’m wondering that myself.”

“I can’t. I can’t die-”

“Caleb-”

“There’s far too much I still have to do,” He wanted to stand up, he wanted to sprint. Surely there was a way out of this place - this whatever it was. The people around him were spirits, gone from the world, and he was just a visitor. “I have to destroy Trent, I have to- I can’t leave Nott behind. I can’t leave the others behind.”

“Alright, Caleb, easy there.”

“Mollymauk, am I dead? Don’t lie to me.” As he asked, he saw his own chest produce a sliced wound, spilling blood out onto the floor. He remembered the pain of it and broke out into a sweat.

Mollymauk rested a hand on Caleb’s neck. “You’re certainly not alive. I’m sorry, Caleb.”

“That can’t be - my parents would be here.”

“They probably decided to move on. This is just a crossroads.”

“Why am I at a ‘crossroads?’ Why are you-?”

“And thank gods you are, so our friends still have a chance to help you.”

“What are you talking about, Molly? What does any of this mean?”

“You weren’t ready to die,” Molly said simply. “So you called something into existence, a space you could rest for a moment. That place happened to be where I was - am. You wanted someone familiar. I had no regrets dying, but I wanted to stick around a little longer.” He opened his palm in a gesture to the space around them.

Caleb only looked at his hands a moment, and the blood gushing forward. He willed it away, and his coat and shirt became unspoiled. He was cut down. He remembered everything now.

“I might be stuck here.”

“I’m sure our talented friends could bring you back. If not, you can always let go; find peace.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know, I. . . In case something like this happened, I wanted to be the one to be here for any of you who might show up. I wondered if you might just move on immediately, but.” Molly took Caleb’s hand in both of his. “I wanted to wait a little while. And really, in the scheme of things, time doesn’t mean much at all.”

Always, always was Molly looking out for them, gathering the broken. Caleb grimaced. “Molly, if I can’t go back, I don’t think I will stay here.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to. I only wanted to visit.” He sighed with a smile. “Since you entered a crossroads, I guess you didn’t want to leave without speaking to me either. I appreciate it.”

And then Caleb felt it. A slight tug at his heart, like the string of a puppet-master trying to pull their marionette away. He almost heard his name.

“You kiss me and expect me to go back? To leave you here?”

“I don’t expect anything. I certainly didn’t expect this.”

“This isn’t fair.”

“No, it isn’t.”

_Caleb . . . Caleb!_

He heard his name - unmistakable. It was Jester’s voice.

Mollymauk put Caleb’s hand to his lips. “It seems you are luckier than me after all.”

“Mollymauk,” Caleb felt the tug again, harder, his sense of self being pulled backwards though he sat still. “I have to go, but I don’t want to leave you behind again.”

“I’ll be right here.” Mollymauk smiled easily and let go of his hand. “I’ll be waiting for all of you. Then we can leave together.”

“Molly. . .”

_Caleb, come back to us!_

_Please, Traveler, bring him back!_

“Do me this favor, Caleb: keep saying my name. And for Gods’ sake, keep living.”

 

And he tumbled back.


End file.
